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Thursday, June 30, 2016

Before dawn Monday, four suicide bombers killed five and wounded at least a dozen in the Lebanese Christian town of al-Qaa. Later that night, as townspeople prepared to bury their dead, four more suicide bombers hit.

The attacks underscored just how endangered are Christians who live in today’s Muslim world. As the United States debates how many Mideast refugees to accept and who should get priority, the answer is staring us in the face: Those most in need of refuge are Christians and Yazidis who live among Muslims.

On June 19, a suicide bomber killed three people as he detonated himself at a memorial to massacred Christians in Qumishi, Syria. On June 9, a Pakistani Muslim mob badly beat a man merely because he was a Christian. On June 5, two people were killed when Islamists targeted a church with rockets in Syria; the same day, a Christian man was hacked to death at his shop by Islamists in Bangladesh. On June 2, in Nigeria, Muslim youths beheaded a Christian woman for allegedly insulting Mohammed.

And that’s just this month — a typical month, sadly, for the world’s Christians.

In May, similar Muslim attacks against Christians took place in Niger, Turkey, Syria, the Philippines, Uganda, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On March 27-28, a Taliban group murdered 69 Christians and wounded 30 more, mainly women and children, as they were celebrating Easter in a park in Lahore, Pakistan.

The list goes on.

Yet President Obama seems to value endangered Muslim lives more than the lives of endangered Christians and Yazidis.

In April, America built a temporary “surge” center in Amman, Jordan, to more rapidly process Muslim immigrants from Syria. The vetting process has been “fast tracked,” perhaps in order to meet Obama’s desired number of 10,000 Muslim Syrians to be admitted by September.

The Obama administration has called for an openhearted and massive acceptance of Muslim refugees from war zones. Democratic leaders insist that it would be wrong, morally, legally and politically, to stop Muslim immigration — but concede that it’s currently impossible to identify would-be jihadists among refugees or homegrown radicals among their descendants.

The United Nations has more modestly suggested that Western nations accept Muslim “women and children” first.

Obama has paid no attention to what has happened in Europe, namely the large number of sexual assaults of girls, women and homosexuals by Muslim men, as well as the staggering financial cost of hosting hostile, non-productive immigrants who may have no desire to assimilate to Western customs.

Here’s another suggestion.

If we want to accept refugees in flight from Arab and Muslim war zones, why not start with Christians who are being slaughtered by Muslims in Muslim-majority countries? Although they’re Arabs, Africans or Central Asians, the fact that they’re also Christians might make them more inclined to assimilate to Western ways — and, even if they assimilate imperfectly, they’re more likely to respond to Western freedoms in nonviolent ways.

Why has the pope offered symbolic asylum in the Vatican only to Muslims and not to fellow Christians?

Recently, according to my colleague Ashraf Rameleh, a Coptic Christian advocate, “Pope Francis, who is ‘building bridges to build peace’ around the world, has naturally reached out to embrace Sunni Muslims.” Rameleh notes that the pope has “grieved with the Orthodox of Egypt and offered his prayers over the spilled blood of Christians in Libya, recognizing the Coptic Christian martyrs.”

However, the pope has remained silent about the systematic destruction of the Eastern Christian Church. He hasn’t supported Egyptian President Abdel Fatta el-Sisi, who is trying to break the stranglehold that the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood still has on Egypt.

I have been told by the director of the Hatune Dogan Foundation, Hans Erling Jensen, that Christians stuck in refugee camps in Turkey have arrived penniless; that Muslims don’t look out for them but, instead, continue to persecute them. Most are starving. Many don’t have money to buy food or to pay traffickers to smuggle them out.

Why not bring Christians and Yazidis from the Muslim world here first? Why not bring Muslim dissidents, ex-Muslims, and Muslim homosexuals here second?

Finally, why not bring Muslim girls and women who are already in flight from honor-based violence, including from honor killing here, next — before we extend visas, green cards and asylum to Muslim boys and men?

Phyllis Chesler is emerita professor of psychology and women’s studies at the College of Staten Island and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Utah senator goes on anti-Trump rant

Asked why he has held off, Lee went on an extended rant that included Trump's attacks on GOP rival Ted Cruz — Lee's best friend — as well as the presumptive GOP nominee's criticism of Muslims, a big issue in the largely Mormon state of Utah.

"I mean we can get into the fact that he accused my best friend’s father of conspiring to kill JFK," Lee told Newsmax's Steve Malzberg, who asked about the lack of a Trump endorsement.

"We can go through the fact that he has made some statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerance," Lee added. "We can get into the fact that he is so unpopular because my state consists of members who were a religious minority church — a people who were ordered exterminated by the governor of Missouri in 1839 and statements like that make them nervous."

He concluded by telling his host: "Don’t sit here and tell me, Steve, that I have no reason to be concerned about Donald Trump."

After years of investigation, combing through tens-of-thousands of documents and conducting interviews with 75 witnesses and knowledgeable individuals, members of the Benghazi Select Committee officially released their final report on the September 11, 2012 attack this week. There's still one major question that is left unanswered: Where was President Obama during the attack?

"I don't know where he was," Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy said during an interview on America's Newsroom Wednesday.

There is nothing in the lengthy report detailing Obama's whereabouts despite the Committee sending the President a list of questions about his role that night. According to reporting from Fox News Chief Intelligence Correspondent, Obama's attorneys have advised him not to answer any questions regarding his whereabouts during the attack.

As a reminder, three years ago the White House classified Obama's location and what he did that night as a "largely irrelevant" details.

During the May 2, 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's complex the White House booked a photographer so we would know exactly where President Obama was.

Will we ever know where President Obama was the night of the Benghazi terror attacks, which left four Americans dead? I suppose time will tell.

Last week, we analyzed the major news that Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS), a health insurance titan, is withdrawing from Minnesota's individual market due to Obamacare-caused financial losses. We wondered if this move might be a sign of things to come, as we saw with United Health's tiered departure from most Obamacare exchanges. Via the ever-watchful John Sexton, it's beginning to look like BCBS will face powerful market incentives to sever ties with Obamacare, particularly if their 2017 steep rate hike increase requests are rebuffed by government regulators. Investors Business Dailyreports:

Across the country Blue Cross affiliates are losing staggering amounts of money thanks to the law, and are putting in for premium hikes that would have been unimaginable before ObamaCare. For example, Health Care Services Corp. -- which owns Blue Cross affiliates in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- lost $1.5 billion on its ObamaCare-compliant plans last year. As a result, it's requesting a nearly 60% rate hike in Texas, and almost 50% in Oklahoma. HCSC pulled out of the New Mexico exchange last year after the state turned down its 50%-plus rate increase. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, meanwhile, lost about $300 million in ObamaCare's first two years and is likely to lose another $100 million this year. It wants a 62% increase in premiums, on top of the 36% it got last year. Highmark Group, which owns Blue Cross affiliates in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia, lost $266 million in just the first nine months of 2015. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina lost $280 million on ObamaCare in 2015. Earlier this year, CEO Brad Wilson talked about possibly pulling out of ObamaCare, saying that "we can't offer something for sale in this marketplace that we know every time it's purchased we're losing money." Arizona'S Blue Cross wants a 65% rate hike after reporting $185 million in losses in ObamaCare's first two years.In Alabama, Blue Cross figures it lost $135 million last year, and $64 million in Nebraska.

Blue Cross produced a landmark study demonstrating that new enrollees through Obamacare's exchanges cost 22 percent more to cover than consumers in the employer-based market. Why? The new marketplaces' risk pool demographics have been older and sicker than projected. Not enough young and healthy Americans -- whose premiums were supposed to subsidize others' care -- have purchased coverage through the program, largely because they cannot afford the "Affordable" Care Act's monthly rates and high out-of-pocket costs. And when lopsided risk pools fuel deep losses, insurers are faced with three choices: (1) Absorb the losses, which would be unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible, (2) raise rates significantly (as many are attempting), which will only drive away more younger and healthier consumers, or (3) flee the marketplaces, leaving Obamacare "beneficiaries" with even fewer options for coverage and care. The market's "stabilization" process isn't going very well, which helps account for why the failing law remains unpopular with the American people. Republicans unveiled a detailed alternative to Obamacare last week, an important and positive step. In case you missed it, here's a discussion about it, featuring Speaker Paul Ryan and several relevant committee chairmen:

Philip Klein notes that despite all the talk about this long-awaited "unified" plan, dissension in the ranks remains, with potential policy battles ahead. Finalized premium increases for next year will be announced to customers just days before the November election. Hillary Clinton first proposed the framework for Obamacare, including its widely-detested individual mandate tax. She says the law is working.

The Navy's top officer said Thursday that an investigation into Iran's detention of 10 sailors and the seizure of their two riverine boats in the Arabian Gulf earlier this year showed that Iran broke international law.

"These two boats and their crew members had every right to be where they were on that day," said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson during a press briefing.

"The investigation concluded that Iran violated international law by impeding the boat's innocent passage transit and they violated sovereign immunity by boarding, searching and seizing the boats and by photographing and videotaping the crew," he said.

The investigation's conclusion now raises the question of whether and how the Obama administration will seek redress from Iran.

Richardson would not comment on whether he is aware of any steps the U.S. government will take in response.

Richardson said the Navy has not directly expressed their displeasure with Iran, leaving it up to Secretary of State John Kerry.

The January 12 incident came just hours before President Obama was to deliver his State of the Union address, and set off a diplomatic scramble to get the sailors released.

The incident was an embarrassment to the administration, which was defending a nuclear agreement with Iran that gave it sanctions relief in exchange for limits to its nuclear program.

The investigation also concluded that the crews of the boats were "derelict" in their duties, by going off course almost immediately after they began their transit from Kuwait to Bahrain in order to save time.

"The RCB boat captains and crews were derelict in performing their duties to expected norms and standards," the report said. "The crews' unplanned and unauthorized deviation caused them to transit unknowingly through Saudi Arabian territorial seas and then through Iranian territorial seas off the coast of Farsi Island."

When the boats were about 1.5 nautical miles from Farsi Island, one of the boats' engines broke down, the summary said.

Shortly thereafter, the Iranian navy approached the boats "in a threatening posture (with weapons uncovered)," it said. As the U.S. boats tried to "evade and then communicated with the Iranians," two more Iranian vessels arrived.

The U.S. boats were then forced to reposition to Farsi Island, the report said.

The report also found that some crew members gave the Iranians information about the capability of their boats and passwords to personal phones and laptops.

And although under standard rules of engagement, U.S. military personnel are obligated to defend their units, the captains leading the crews ordered their gunners to step away from their weapons.

"I didn't want to start a war with Iran," one of the captains said. "My thought at the end of the day was that no one had to die for a misunderstanding."

The Iranians held the sailors for 16 hours, later releasing video and pictures of the crews kneeling with their hands behind their heads.

Video was also released of one of the captains apologizing, and another crew member wiping away tears.

Overall, the mission was plagued by poor decisions, bad training and little oversight, the investigation found.

Two senior officers have already been fired over the incident: Capt. Kyle Moses, which headed the task force that included the riverine units, and Cmdr. Eric Rasch, the commander of the riverine squadron.

The investigation recommended taking disciplinary or administration action against several members of the crew.

Republicans opposed to Donald Trump are plotting a last-ditch effort to deny him their party's nomination at the convention in Cleveland.

A coalition of delegates, lawyers, rules experts and PACs has formed in what participants say is the most coordinated effort to date to dump Trump from the Republican ticket.

The organizers are confident of success and say they're being underestimated.

"This is a laser-guided bomb aimed right at the foundation of the Trump campaign," said Beau Correll, a Virginia delegate and central figure in the opposition movement.

But despite the gains the groups say they've made in fundraising, staffing, coordination and media attention, few are taking their efforts seriously.

Trump's campaign, led by battle-tested convention manager Paul Manafort, has been working closely with the Republican National Committee (RNC).

It will be Trump's convention, and his loyalists will have control of the agenda, the microphones and access to an army of supporters ready to surround and shout down insurgents looking to cause a scene inside the Quicken Loans Arena.

No one at the RNC or within the Trump campaign is expressing any degree of panic over the uprising. RNC strategist Sean Spicer told The Hill the effort is nothing more than "tweets and media fascination."

Skeptics say the insurgents don't have the votes they need on the Rules Committee - a bastion of party traditionalists - to "unbind" delegates from Trump. And while an emergency legal challenge to unbind delegates in Virginia has a chance, legal experts say, it's not a great one.

Even if the rebels are able to convince hundreds of delegates to ignore the results of the monthslong primary contest - won handily by Trump - there are processes in place that could ensure the New York mogul becomes the nominee.

"They've laid down the dried leaves to start the fire but they need lightning to strike," said one prominent conservative lawyer who requested anonymity. "It is really tough to organize the kind of whip operation you need at something as sprawling as the Republican National Convention. Really, really tough."

Still, the effort appears more organized than any of the failed "Never Trump" movements that came before it.

Conservative media figures Erick Erickson, Steve Deace and Bill Kristol have begun joining the conference calls for the coalition and are fanning the flames in editorials and on the airwaves.

Republicans are closely watching the Virginia lawsuit, filed by Correll, in federal court on Friday that challenges a state law that binds delegates to the primary winner. A ruling is expected before the convention, and could come as early as this week.

Legal experts interviewed by The Hill say the lawsuit has a better chance than similar efforts that have failed in the past but still described it as a "long-shot."

"Never Trump" Republicans believe a decision in their favor could ignite a stampede away from the presumptive nominee by validating their argument that all of the delegates to the convention are unbound.

"It would be like a shot of Red Bull straight to the vein," said Kendal Unruh, a Colorado delegate and one of the main organizers of the planned convention revolt.

Unruh's efforts have so far earned the lion's share of media attention.

She sits on the Rules Committee and is waging a campaign to achieve 57 votes from the 112-member panel in favor of a "Conscience Clause" that would unbind delegates to support whomever they choose.

Unruh says she has 17 firm commitments and eight soft pledges so far. That's short of the 28 signatures she needs for the rule to even be considered for adoption. Party insiders interviewed by The Hill don't see her reaching that threshold.

Several other groups are ready with back-up plans in case she falls short.

Colorado conservative activist Regina Thomson, who runs a PAC called Free the Delegates, is organizing a floor fight irrespective of the Rules Committee's decision.

Thomson is overseeing an effort to convince delegates that they're already unbound. She is talking to delegates about parliamentary rules and how to protest on the convention floor if their representative doesn't cast a vote in accordance with their wishes.

Another group, called Delegates Unbound, led by GOP strategist Dane Waters, is overseeing a national lobbying campaign focused on contacting delegates before they arrive in Cleveland to urge them to vote their conscience.

His group has raised $2.5 million and has already run a $150,000 spot on Fox News Channel. Waters said he will have a staff of 15 regional and state directors manning his national whip operation.

Those three groups are now strategizing together and sharing data.

They claim to have secured enough money to launch a legal defense fund and invest in communications technologies that will keep them in contact with one another on the convention floor.

They say they started bringing volunteers on as full-time employees this week and that they will have lawyers and convention experts on the ground in Cleveland.

Thomson says 350 to 400 delegates and alternates have already inquired about how they can help. An organizing conference call on Sunday night hit maximum capacity of 2,000 participants, Thomson said.

Still, the deck is stacked mightily against the rebellion.

Many Republicans interviewed by The Hill privately grumbled about the effort, describing it as a tiny band of disgruntled delegates engaged in a vanity project that would destroy the party if it were successful.

They believe the likeliest end game is that a few skirmishes break out on the convention floor but are quickly extinguished.

The organizers say they're already under intense pressure at the state level to back away from the effort. Delegates considering joining the rebellion will face the same pressure.

And a host of parliamentary rules designed to make the convention a coronation rather than an election are available to Trump and the RNC to beat back any inroads the insurgents might make.

"I don't see anything here that would spark a stampede away from Trump," said the conservative lawyer.

"What sets off the stampede is Trump doing badly in the polls and Senate candidates falling behind because of it. They need someone, somewhere, like [RNC Chairman] Reince Priebus or [Speaker] Paul Ryan or [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell to show an ounce of leadership if they're to be successful. That's been nonexistent so far."

Any reasonable person would think there is something nefarious about the Attorney General of the United States Loretta Lynch meeting surreptitiously with Hillary Clinton’s husband in a private jet on the tarmac. Lynch just happened to be flying into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on a private aircraft when former President Clinton who just happened to be visiting the Phoenix area was waiting at that very airport waiting to depart. ABC15 reports that Clinton was notified Lynch would be arriving at the airport soon and waited for her arrival. Lynch was arriving in Phoenix for a planned visit as part of her national tour to promote community policing.

Lynch and Clinton met in Lynch’s private jet parked on the airport tarmac for thirty minutes. The meeting happened as Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, remains under investigation for her email scandal. Attorney General Lynch was asked about the meeting during her news conference at the Phoenix Police Department:

“Actually, while I was landing at the airport, I did see President Clinton at the Phoenix airport as I was leaving, and he spoke to myself and my husband on the plane,” she said. “Our conversation was a great deal about his grandchildren. It was primarily social and about our travels. He mentioned the golf he played in Phoenix, and he mentioned travels he’d had in West Virginia.”

“There was no discussion of any matter pending for the department or any matter pending for any other body,” Lynch added. “There was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of the State Department emails, by way of example.”

When Lynch was asked whether there was any “impropriety” to meeting with Clinton while the email investigation is ongoing, she pivoted nicely:

“My agency is involved in a matter looking at State Department policies and issues,” she said. “It’s being handled by career investigators and career agents. It will always follow the facts and the law and do the same independent and thorough investigation that they’ve done in all.”

“The most high-profile national security investigation under the attorney general is the investigation into whether or not classified information was mishandled in connection with Hillary Clinton’s server,” Reid told CBSN. “Now, President Clinton and his foundation are also tangentially involved in that investigation, so the appearance of impropriety is just stunning.”

All lawyers are trained to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Worse for Lynch, her meeting with Clinton surely violates the Department of Justice ethics regulations. The Department’s Ethics Handbook requires the Attorney General to avoid the appearance of impropriety:

This Ethics Handbook for On and Off-Duty Conduct summarizes the principal ethics laws and regulations governing the conduct of Department of Justice employees. The purpose of this handbook is to increase your awareness of the ethics rules and their applications, including when you are not in a duty status or are on leave. We have included citations after each rule and we suggest that you consult the full text of the law or regulation when you have specific questions.

The ethics rules condensed here include the conflict of interest statutes found at 18 USC §§ 202 to 209, Executive Order 12674 on Principles of Ethical Conduct as amended by EO 12731, the Uniform Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch at 5 CFR Part 2635, Department of Justice regulations at 5 CFR Part 3801 that supplement the uniform standards, and additional Department regulations at 28 CFR Part 45, and Executive branch-wide standards of conduct at 5 USC § 735. …

After that introduction the handbook offers 14 General Principles of Ethical Conduct. The most relevant one to this exploding scandal is number 14.

14. Employees shall endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards set forth in this part. Whether particular circumstances create an appearance that the law or these standards have been violated shall be determined from the perspective of a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts

5 C.F.R 2635.101 (b)

Appearance of Impropriety

An employee shall endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that the employee is violating the law or the ethical standards set forth in this part.

Have you ever been witness to a nearly 70 year old toddler? That’s Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee. The man is an embarrassment. The latest episode is him having temper tantrum about other GOP presidential nominees who have thus far, refused to back him.

The real problem however is, Trump once again is being hypocrite. Trump disavowed the pledge back in March:

When asked if he would keep the pledge he signed last September, Trump responded “No, I won’t.” The real estate mogul explained that he was taking back the pledge because, “I have been treated very unfairly,” and listed the Republican National Committee and party establishment among those he believes have wronged him.

This is typical of Trump. And most three year old kids. Trump is the bratty kid who hits the other kids, steals their candy and then wails uncontrollably when one of those other toddlers decides to hit back.

Trump disavowed the pledge. He can’t whine people are refusing to uphold it now.

For 25 years I managed a small electronics manufacturing firm. I had uniformly bad experiences with both U.S. regulators and, surprisingly, European regulators. Government regulators respond to political forces. Science and economics comes second and the regulators readily twist the science or economics in order to pacify political forces. Regulation of pollution responds to the scare of the day, be it asbestos, lead, radiation, DDT, dioxin, plutonium, carbon dioxide, etc. Regulators have absolutely no interest in protecting industry unless the industry has political influence. That, of course, favors big companies that can effectively lobby. Big companies often welcome complex regulation because it handicaps their smaller competitors. Big firms can more easily afford the legal and engineering costs of regulation.

An example is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation of incidental radio emissions from computing equipment. Some years ago I wrote an article detailing the stupidity of those regulations. The regulations were originally motivated by the desire to keep computers from interfering with home televisions. However, since the regulations were written, home television has been converted to digital television that is extremely resistant to interference. Additionally the vast majority of home televisions are connected to cable, also resistant to interference. The original motivation for the regulations has vanished due to technical change, but the regulations have not changed and apparently the FCC has no intention of doing anything different. The reason? A large and influential testing industry has grown up around the obsolete regulations. Big manufacturing companies could have influence, but they have no motivation to reduce the disproportionate burden on their smaller competitors. They also have internal bureaucracies whose existence depends on supporting continuing government regulation.

The electronics industry is international. My small company had 40% of its sales outside of the U.S. When the European regulators decreed, in 2001, against all common sense, that lead-based solder could no longer be used in electronic equipment, the entire industry was turned upside down. The U.S. EPA had no problem with lead-based solder that had been used without problems for 100 years. But when the European regulators outlawed lead, the entire global electronics industry had to obey because everyone sold, directly or indirectly, to Europe. You might think that the U.S. government would come to the rescue of the domestic electronics industry and exert its influence to stop the reckless European regulations. Dream on.

Most electronic equipment is manufactured by soldering components, such as integrated circuits, to printed circuit boards. The soldering is usually done by selectively applying a sticky solder paste to the boards, placing the components and the running the assembly on a conveyor belt through an oven to melt the solder paste. When lead-based solder was banned all the practical alternative solders had a higher melting point requiring the oven to be hotter. In turn this required redesigning many components to withstand the higher soldering temperature. Additionally many new problems emerged with the unfamiliar solders. For example, in some instances, metal whiskers grew and shorted out the components. The retooling cost to the industry was in the billions of dollars. Often, expensive capital equipment had to be scrapped.

The notion that lead in electronics equipment would cause poisoning was unsupported, even comical, given that tens of millions of automobile batteries, each containing over 20 pounds of lead, are disposed of, or recycled, each year. The influential automobile industry is not going to be forced to abandon lead.

Why did the European regulators ban lead? The ostensible reason is that it might create pollution is probably not the real reason. Government regulators usually have hidden agendas that are not publicly disclosed. It may be that the European electronics industry thought that they stood to gain a competitive advantage over the Japanese and Americans. It may be that the regulators were just so dumb that they didn't realize the havoc they would cause and when it became apparent they didn't want to admit that they had been wrong. It is a mistake to underestimate the level or ignorance and incompetence of government regulators. To be fair it is difficult, or impossible, for a team of regulators to understand the needs and problems of a complicated industry.

If you ask government regulators whey they don't keep their regulations up to date, the answer is usually that they need more money. That is the ready answer to evade responsibility and blame someone else. Their regulations are never wrong, unnecessary or stupid. The regulations are always prudent and based on the best information. In other words, it is all about political spin.

There is little hope of challenging stupid or unnecessary regulation in the courts because the Supreme Court has decreed that deference must be paid to regulatory agencies. Even if some sort of challenge is possible the legal costs run to the millions and the lawsuits drag on for years.

I've only mentioned two narrow regulations, one U.S. and one European, that affected me. Yet those two narrow regulations imposed billions of dollars of unnecessary costs on the electronics industry. Currently the Code of Federal Regulations has 174,000 pages. It is not surprising that the regulatory burden on the U.S. economy has been estimated to be in excess of two trillion dollars a year. That's $6,000 for every person in the country, or $24,000 for a family of four.

Reining in runaway regulators is an unsolved problem. The issues are often too technical for judges, much less juries, to understand. The provisions for public hearings and public comment are a farce that the agencies generally ignore. My suggestion is to have institutional B teams whose job is to operate as adversaries creating a brief against proposed or existing regulations. Obviously the B teams would have to be independent of the agencies and well enough funded to grapple with the complex issues. The existence of B teams would make the agencies fear generating stupid or unnecessary regulations.

Norman Rogers writes often about scientific and regulatory issues. He is an unpaid advisor to the Heartland Institute and a member of the board of directors of the CO2 Coalition. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union and of the American Meteorological Society. He maintains a website.

This week the abominable evil at the heart of liberalism has been revealed once again.

The Supreme Court has ruled that a woman's health is less important than ensuring that she can be used as a sex object.

What matters is not a woman's right to choose but her ability to be used. The Court has said that access to unsafe abortions is more important than ensuring that a women's life is not at risk when having an abortion.

The Supreme Court also ruled that Muslims must serve pork in their restaurants. Oh wait, no -- the Supreme Court would never issue that ruling, but the Court did rule that pharmacists whose deeply held religious beliefs tell them that abortion is murder must actively cooperate with the murder of unborn blacks -- black women are 5 times more likely to abort their child than white women, a disparate impact that never seems to bother liberals.

That's on par with saying that Jews must serve as guards at Nazi concentration camps.

In the old days, the 90s, liberals used to say that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare" but today liberals view abortion as a positive good; a veritable sacramentbased on the murder of a child.

It's settled science, far more settled than so called climate change, that human life begins at conception. That's why when polled only 12% of Americans believe that abortion should be allowed for any reason at any time in a pregnancy.

That makes sense given that the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a spinoff of Planned Parenthood, tells us that 1% of abortions are due to rape or incest and 3% are due to possible maternal health problems which means that 96% of abortions are not the hard cases that are used to sell abortion.

The devolution of the liberal moral case can be seen in how Hillary Clinton has gone from wanting abortion to be "safe, legal and rare, and by rare, I mean rare." to saying "The unborn person doesn't have constitutional rights," when endorsing abortion at any point in a pregnancy for any reason -- including sex selection abortions which target unborn women.

Liberals today even support abortions of unborn babies at 20+ weeks gestation who could survive outside the womb; i.e. babies that are not dependent on their mothers.

By saying that abortionists need not have admitting privileges at a hospital, a significant thing if complications develop which they often do, and that abortion mills need not meet the same standards as other surgical facilities the Supreme Court is putting the back alley back into abortion.

Instead of asking what sort of doctors can't get admitting rights at a hospital, or why abortion clinics don't want to provide a safe environment for their customers, the Court decided that all that mattered is that as many abortion mills as possible should be open.

In todays ultra-litigious society, every medical care provider is constantly working to ensure that there is no basis for anyone to complain about their treatment; all except abortion mills, where profit is king and the customer is simply a source of cash.

Now when their patients die because of poor facilities or incompetent medical staff abortion mills can say that the Supreme Court said it was okay.

The assault on pharmacists in Washington is even more egregious than the Supreme Court's disregard for the health of women however.

While women are often coerced by the men who use them to have abortions it is still illegal in the U.S., unlike China, to force a woman to have an abortion if she doesn't want one -- though liberals arepushing to change that in surrogacy cases.

The Supreme Courts refusal to review the Washington law that forces pharmacists to provide abortion-inducing poisons to women is saying that citizens can be forced, in direct violation of their First Amendment rights, to participate in the killing of innocent human beings.

The new liberal perspective, seen in abortion and gay marriage cases, is that if you offer a public service you must do whatever the public wants. But of course that's not what liberals believe. Gay bakers who refused to make a cake with the text "We do not support gay marriage." were defended by liberals, for example.

Previously pharmacists with religious objections to abortions would simply tell a woman who wanted to murder her unborn daughter the name of a nearby pharmacy which had no qualms about participating in what Jesse Jackson called "genocide" against black people.

But that's not good enough for liberals whose objective is to force all to worship at the altar of abortion. Never mind that abortifacient chemicals are never medically necessary, unlike antibiotics.

The simple reality is that the Court's rulings on abortion this week reveal the raw fascism at the core of modern liberalism.

The Court will stop at nothing to remove the First Amendment religious rights of any person in the public square -- while constantly defending pornographers and libeling liberal journalist's First Amendment "rights".

Moving on from simply excluding religion from government spaces, the Court is now officially ghettoizing the First Amendment to private settings and thereby turning the Constitution on its head.

As the Court applies whatever standard it likes to any given case, nothing but empty words separates our constitutional decisions from judicial fiat.

Liberals are no longer simply good people who have a different idea on how to deal with poverty. Now they are quite literally waging a war on women by supporting abortion at any time for any reason, including sex selection abortions, irrespective of the risks to the mother's health.

These new fascists are hell-bent on denying Americans their Constitutional right to exercise their faith.

As such, we are not dealing with the usual political struggles expected in any Democracy. Rather we're facing an existential threat brought on by the new brownshirts who demand that rights are from them and only apply to those who support the liberal cause.

If liberals win we will live in an fascist police state where whoever is in power can enforce draconian punishments on anyone who does not share their ideology or theology.

It's time to stop treating liberals as the "loyal opposition" and start publicly decrying them as the anti-American fascists they really are.

Just as we won't win the war against Islamic extremism if we refuse to call it by name we won't win the war to preserve our freedom if we act as though modern liberals actually believe in our Constitution.

Use your voice to condemn the radical anti-American positions of modern liberals so that more and more Americans will see that allowing liberals to get their way will end with America becoming a tyranny.

Hillary Clinton has a lot going for her in 2016. Among her primary assets we might list genitals (aka "first woman"), Bill's and Barack's coattails, pastel pant suits, felons, feminists, plus sizes, dependents, gender benders, hyphenated minorities, and anti-Semites. Mrs. Clinton doesn't have much in the way of achievements, but she does have a grab bag of constituents, a checkered past, and a righteous resume.

Alas, like husband Bill, her history, no matter how shady, doesn't seem to matter. Indeed, Hillary may go in the books as the second no-fault presidential candidate in American history. Her resume, indeed, is an artfully contrived vitae where election, appointment, or position has hip-checked character, failure, and achievement deficits out of the public square.

Nevertheless, Hillary's coterie of anti-Semites is a unique group that provides a window on probable foreign policy vectors of another Clinton presidency. Three of the more notorious American Jew haters have been flagged by their appointment to the 2016 Democrat Platform Committee.

Mohammad by Salvatore Dali

In order of descending importance they are: Arabist James Zogby, Princeton pedant Cornel West, and Congressman Keith Ellison, representing the Minnesota caliphate. On paper, all three are supposed to be Sanders's delegates. Yet, their mere presence in Democrat inner circles says all that needs to be said about the American Left, Islamophiles, and attitudes towards Jews and Israel.

James Zogby

James Zogby, the Arab lobbyist, is not to be confused with John Zogby the pollster. The two are, in some respects, in the same business. Still, they are not the same person. Although, they are family; literal and liberal Lebanese Arab brothers with common interests.

James made a career in the "non-profit" rackets, mainly Arab American advocacy groups like Arab American Institute and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The AAI is the "political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community." The emphasis here is clearly on the adjective. Both brothers are good examples of the hyphenated politics that balkanize the American left.

James Zogby served with the Gore and Obama campaigns and he is a visiting professor at NYU, Abu Dhabi campus. The elder Zogby is also a member of the executive committee of the Democratic Party. James Zogby's anti-Israel credentials include rabid support for terrorist Hezb'allah, frequent condemnations of Israel, and characterizations of Jews as "Nazis."

James Zogby makes the top of the DNC anti-Semite list because between him and his brother, they are capable of spinning news, opinion, and any associated Arab, Muslim, or jihad propaganda.

Cornel West

Other than Louis Farrakhan at the Nation of Islam, Professor Cornel West of Princeton might be the signal anti-Semitic role model in black America. West brings academic gravitas to the role. On the one hand, West plays the home boy race card with effect, at the same time vilifying Jews for "occupation and annihilation."

West's favorite media stooge is Tavis Smiley of PBS. Professor West and Smiley are often seen as an Islamophilia tag team, apologizing for Muslims on the public dime. Anti-Semitism is now a prominent feature of black American culture nationwide. Professor West and Smiley count Louis Farrakhan, NOI high priest, unapologetic misogynist, and Jew hater, as a touchstone in skin game circles.

Up at Harvard, Professor Louis Gates is a study in contrast. Gates uses his academic chops honestly, recognizing the role of black Africans and Muslims in historical and contemporary slavery. Boko Haram takes a bow here. Gates also recognizes the corrosive effects of epidemic anti-Semitism among blacks in America. Legit scholars like Louis Gates, needless to say, play no role in the DNC "diversity" mix on the 2016 Platform Committee.

Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison is the American face of stealth Jihad and another "first" phenomenon on two counts. He is the first black and the first Muslim congressman from Minnesota. Keith is also a converso, a former Catholic, like Lew Alcindor, converted to Islam when black rage and Islam was hip. Congressman Ellison is most famous for taking his oath of office from Nancy Pelosi in Washington on a Koran.

Ellison has been cagey about his conversion, but his ties to the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan are matters of record. He has written in support of Farrakhan on more than one occasion under a pseudonym. Ellison also has extensive personal, political, and financial ties to the American Muslim jihad net through such organizations as Council on American Islamic Relations, Muslim American Society, Islamic Society of North America, Muslim public Affairs Council, North American Imams Federation, and the notorious Saudi funded American Open University in Virginia, a kind of seminary for Muslim clerics.

Former AOU chairman Ja'far Sheikh Idris considers American democracy to be "the antithesis of Islam." He also claims that no one "can be a Muslim who makes or freely accepts or believes that anyone has the right to make or accept legislation that is contrary to divine (Islamic) law."

If the telltales on the DNC Platform Committee say anything, Hillary Clinton, like her husband and Barack Obama, is unlikely to do anything about growing anti-Semitism at home or the Arab/Muslim tilt abroad.

Most American Jews, ironically, already lean left. Likewise, black America is a veritable liberal or Democratic Party plantation. When irredentist Muslims are thrown into the mix, the stew in "progressive" America becomes a critical mass of anti- Israel, anti-Jew bigotry.

Political diagnosticians argue that American Jews vote with, and fund, the Democratic Party because the diaspora sees classic liberalism, separation of church and state, as the bedrock of survival. The argument suggests that conservative Christians make Jews nervous, given the history of Church persecution. In fact, today's evangelical Christians are more ardent supporters of Israel than so-called J-Street Jews. On the darker side, American blacks and Muslims of all stripes are close to monolithically anti-Israel, if not wholly anti-Semitic.

The great irony of the Mideast, question today is that secular social democracy in the West has aligned itself with the ferocious theocrats of the Muslim right. Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Iran, and Turkey are but four prominent examples. The Muslim tilt inside the Beltway transcends American political parties now; both still subscribe to the "two state' fantasy, a placebo that should have expired with the rise of Hezb'allah,al Qaeda, and ISIS. Traditional Palestinian terror groups are now outflanked on the religious right by state-sponsored Shia and Sunni fanatics worldwide.

Indeed, one of the most prominent sponsors of Islamist religious mayhem today is a clueless American administration that supports theocracy in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey; again, just to name a few American "allies," – in practice toxic state-sponsors of anti-Semitism, Arab terror factions, and lethal Islamic jihad.

Barack Hussein Obama may not qualify as an out anti-Semite. Yet he is clearly the most hostile American president since 1948. There is no evidence to suggest that Hillary Clinton attitudes towards Jews and Israel will be different.

Terror has become so commonplace, that after each atrocity these days, liberal America immediately changes the subject. Call it terror fatigue. Take the recent Orlando homosexual kill, if you read a newspaper, or listen to the administration, you are led to believe that Bill of Rights and not the Koran was the inspiration or cause of the massacre.

Outlook

If Hamas and Fatah were to make a real deal with Israel today, al Qaeda and the Islamic State would make short work of those Palestinian factions tomorrow. If Jews were to accommodate those same terrorists tomorrow, such a pact would be a death warrant for Jews too. A Palestinian state is not a peace plan anymore so much as suicide pact for Fatah, Hamas - and Israel.

Maybe that's the hidden agenda for both American political parties; not if, but when Israel is to be thrown to Mohamed's wolves. A win for Clinton, promises more of the same, a kind of hideous end game for homeland Jews. A defeat of Hillary in 2016 offers the possibility of a change in American policy.